This post is the first of a series of posts which reproduce a talk on Moral Relativism I gave at both the Auckland and Tauranga Confident Christianity Conference’s and was given earlier in the year as part at a series of talks on apologetics at Orewa Community Church.
In moral debates about you will hear slogans like “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one” or “if you don’t like pornography don’t watch it.” The basic idea is that if you think a particular action is morally wrong, then you shouldn’t do it, however, it is mistaken or inappropriate to claim that people who don’t share your opinion shouldn’t do it. The slogans in question assume that moral principles correctly apply only to people who believe in those principles.
The pervasiveness of this kind of thinking can be seen in a media report I watched several years ago. A pornographer 
had organised a festival on the main street of Auckland, called “Boobs on Bikes”. It involved people, including topless women, riding down Queenstreet displaying erotica. There was some controversy over this event. During the media coverage journalists interviewed several people present. What was interesting was how many people responded by saying something like this: “It is the 21st century” or “we live in a liberal society”. Notice what happens when people do this. They were asked whether a particular action or policy was right or wrong. They answered by appealing to what they perceived to be currently fashionable or conventionally accepted. The assumption is that what is right or wrong is determined by what is conventionally accepted or fashionable.
These responses reflect a position called Relativism by moral philosophers. In a bestselling book. The Closing of the American Mind. The prominent philosopher Alan Bloom opened by saying:
There is one thing a professor can be certain absolutely of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. These are things you don’t think about. The students’ backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some atheists; some are to the Left, some to the Right; some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral intention. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society. That it is a moral issue for students is revealed by the character of their response when challenged – a combination of disbelief and indignation: “Are you an absolutist?,” the only alternative they know, uttered in the same tone as “Are you a monarchist?” or “Do you believe in witches?” This latter leads into the indignation, for someone who believes in witches might well be a witch-hunter or a Salem judge. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness – and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings – is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all. (Bloom 1987)
Bloom was beginning a scathing critique of what is often called moral relativism. Note that Bloom mentions students entering university. One reason for this is that relativism is not a common position in contemporary philosophy or ethics, and most philosophers I know of think it is pretty clearly a mistaken position. However, it is extremely common at the popular level. Because relativism is is an important challenge to Christian ethics it is important to reflect on how Christians respond to this challenge.
- Relativism vs Objectivism: understanding the issues:
Christian’s like Muslims and Jews, believe God has issued commands to human beings, and our moral duties are related to these commands.
However, or not God exists or issues commands doesn’t depend on whether we think he does. If God created the world, then this is a fact that occurred well before we were born and my believing or not believing it makes no difference to whether it occurred. If God did not create the world, hoping and wishing he has doesn’t make the past change. The same is true of God’s commanding, if God has issued commands then this is a fact, people may disagree with what he demands, but this disagreement doesn’t make any difference to whether the commands exist.
To illustrate the point here, return to the slogan I opened this talk with. Suppose someone was contemplating jumping off the sky tower. You responded “if you do that you’ll die” only to get the response. ‘Who are you to impose your belief in the law of gravity onto me?” I doubt anyone would be impressed by this response. Whether or not the laws of gravity exist doesn’t depend on whether you believe it. God’s moral laws don’t differ from the laws or decrees by which he governs the universe. They either exist or they don’t.
This means that Christians are objectivists about morality. Objectivism holds that: certain moral standards are correct independently of whether you, I or our society believe they are or accept that they are. Some moral principles apply to people regardless of whether they choose to accept these principles, and if people do not accept these principles, they are making a mistake.
By contrast, relativists hold that moral hold that all moral judgements are correct or incorrect relative to different cultures or individuals. Howard-Synder (1999) highlights two major kinds of relativism:
- Cultural relativism holds an action is wrong for a person because their society condemns that action.
- Subjectivism holds that actions are right and wrong relative to individual opinions. An action is wrong for a person because he or she thinks it is wrong
If relativism is true, then moral standards apply only to people who themselves or whose society accepts those standards. This is the assumption you see reflected in the slogans I mentioned at the start of my talk.
References
Bloom, Alan. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind: How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Howard-Snyder, Frances. 1999. “Christianity and ethics.” In Reason for the Hope Within, edited by Michael Murray, 376-377. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Tags: Allan Bloom · Ethical Theory · Francis Howard-Sydner · Moral Relativism11 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Matt said:
“This means that Christians are objectivists about morality. Objectivism holds that: certain moral standards are correct independently of whether you, I or our society believe they are or accept that they are.”
Barry replies:
If that is true, then you should be able to establish the correctness of the proposition
“torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes is objectively immoral”
WITHOUT relying on what anybody else “believes or accepts” about that subject.
Indeed, the dictionaries tell us that “objective” means
“not dependent on the mind for existence”
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/objective
So go ahead…demonstrate that that the proposition
“torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes is objectively immoral”
is a true fact “not dependent on the mind for its existence.”
Another dictionary defines ‘objective’ as:
“having reality independent of the mind”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective
So go ahead…demonstrate that that the above-cited moral proposition has “reality independent of the mind”.
You know…just like you also don’t need any human input whatsoever to demonstrate anything else that you would characterize as having “objective” existence, such as trees.
If you start asking me questions, you’ll be violating the definition of objectivity. You don’t need my input on anything, nor do you need to know whether I accept or believe any certain way about it, to achieve your own stated goal of demonstrating the above-cited moral proposition to be objectively true.
You could also clear things up by directly answering the question of why you think said baby-torture is objectively immoral in the first place.
Is it immoral because the bible tells you so?
Is it immoral because most humans say it is immoral?
is it immoral because you personally find it revolting?
Is it immoral because all strong feelings about a moral issue necessarily come from God?
Some other reason or reasons?
I look forward to your replies,
Barry
Ok two things here. First, that inference doesn’t follow: Even if a proposition is objectively true, it doesn’t follow that a person can demonstrate or establish its truth. For example, the judgement that the earth orbited the sun, was true in the thirteenth century, however no one could establish its truth then.
Second, no proposition can be established “without relying on what someone else believes or accepts”. This because proof and argument always involves inferring a conclusion from prior premises, that one’s interlocutor believes. If you can’t appeal to what a person believes you can’t prove anything at all. For example, you can’t establish that the physical world exists independently of anyone perceiving it without appealing to what someone else accepts or believes. Nor can you establish that events existed in the past independently of whether on remembered them or not without appealing to something some else believes or accepts.
So all this response does is arbitrarily lay down a standard no objectively true proposition on any subject meets and complain moral propositions don’t meet this standard.
Unfortunately, you don’t define technical terms in a discipline like meta ethics by looking at dictionaries. Dictionaries only tell one common usage, they don’t necessarily convey the way terms are used or the precision they are used with within a discipline.
But it also seems to me this definition is mistaken as its too broad. Take the judgement: “John was in pain when Billy smashed him in the head with a brick” that judgement is either objectively true or false, by believing or willing John wasnt in pain doesnt make it so. However, seeing pain is a mental state its truth also depends on the existence of minds. So mind independence isnt a good definition of objectivity. What objectivity requires is that a judgement is incorrect independently of what philosophers call our evaluative attitudes towards it. Our evaluation that the proposition is true or false or our evaluation that the action is good or bad. Evaluative judgements are obviously mental judgements, they are a specific type of mental act and not the same thing as mind generically. Consquently, doesn’t require complete mind independence.
Sure when you demonstrate physical objects exist without appealing to something someone believes or accepts.
Does your inability to do so show that mean the physical universe depends on my mind for existence? Was I around at the big bang, if I died tomorrow would that mean you cease to exist and the whole universe is annihilated?
See above about relying on dictionaries to settle the meaning of technical terms and the mistaken definition your relying on
That again doesn’t follow, obviously trees exist independently of minds, if every human being in the world committed suicide tomorrow the olive tree in my garden wouldn’t pop out of existence. However, it’s not true that you can demonstrate the existence of trees without appealing to something humans know or accept.
Your confusing the conditions necessary for something to exist with the conditions necessary to know something exists. Not the same thing.
That again doesn’t follow for the reasons I cited above, pointing out judgements are true or false independently of whether we think they are, doesn’t entail one can demonstrate or know they are without human input.
You’ll need to fix up that fallacious inference before your objection has any soundness.
Unfortunately those questions assume the same mistake I mentioned above, your first question is about why I think a certain action is wrong it asks what my grounds or reasons for believing something is.
The problem is you then in the next few sentences take that to be the same as asking the question of why an action is immoral.
That’s just a bad inference, I can ask a person why they believe sub atomic particles exist, and they might reply they believe it because they were taught it in a physics class. That doesn’t mean that sub atomic particles exist because science teachers say so. If they exist, they existed a long time before science teachers or even humans came on the scene.
So, sorry, but your objections here seem to be just based on a series of non sequiturs.
Dr. Flannagan,
There are 7 important reasons why you should get down to brass tacks and provide your first reason for saying torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes, is objectively immoral:
First, I’ll do what philosophers routinely do, and concede my alleged errors *solely for the sake of argument*.
Second, you are the one asserting that baby-torture is objectively immoral. Suspiciously, you never get around to saying exactly why, you rather prefer to just balk at the fallacies in the moral relativist objections. But it wouldn’t matter if you were correct in your criticisms of me, that doesn’t fulfill your own burden to provide positive evidence/argument in favor of what you believe.
Third, despite your bible telling you that unbelievers are either completely incapable of, or else highly unlikely to, engage in correct thinking with respect to godly truths (1st Corinthians 2:14), you still provide many arguments to non-Christian philosophers and audiences. I may therefore safely assume that, even if you judge me to be wrong in many of my views, this will no more slow you down in setting forth argument to me, than it slows you down from setting forth argument to other equally spiritually blind atheists.
Fourth, you and I are not conversing in private, where you might otherwise think it legitimate to say my ignorance renders continued dialogue pointless. There are obviously many Christians less educated than you, who are reading your posts here, and they would benefit from seeing your reasons for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral. Even if you believed that your revealing here your first reason to say baby torture is objectively immoral, wouldn’t benefit *me*, you could not hold such a negative view of all the other Christians who learn from your posts, and who, like most Christians, cannot imagine how they could demonstrate any act to be ‘objectively’ immoral apart from merely quoting the bible. You are helping thousands or perhaps millions of Christians when you answer my challenge directly.
Fifth, you actually can’t really say for sure whether God would or wouldn’t open my understanding if you gave your first reason for saying baby-torture is objectively immoral. Don’t you believe that God somehow works through your online posts, even if He doesn’t make them totally inerrant? And if you believe in Ezra 1:1 and Daniel 4:32-33, you cannot deny the ability of the bible-god to make even his enemies believe whatever he wants them to (i.e., Cyrus came to believe the Jews should be freed from exile, Nebuchadnezzar came to believe he should eat grass). Don’t underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit as he works through your posts.
Sixth, it doesn’t matter how much you try to justify refusal to answer my below-repeated challenge directly, you can hardly “expect” a moral relativist to appreciate your reasons for saying baby torture is objectively immoral, if you constantly refuse to reveal those reasons. It would be any different than the atheist who “expects” Christians to appreciate why he thinks God doesn’t exist…while never getting down to the business at hand and actually specifying those reasons.
Seventh and finally, your continual refusal to actually deliver the actual goods could be reasonably construed as your refusal to “correct those who are in opposition…” (2nd Timothy 2:25), or to “provide a reason for the hope that lies within you (1st Peter 3:15), or a refusal to “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 3). At the end of the day, your willingness to do apologetics eventually obligates you to do something more than merely point out inconsistencies in the non-Christian view and start laying the basis for your own positive case, a thing that doesn’t require you to mention anybody else’s fallacies or misunderstandings.
Now that you’ve discovered that the benefits of revealing exactly why baby-torture is ‘objectively’ immoral, outweigh any perceived risks, let’s try this again:
You believe that torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes, is objectively immoral. Why?
Because the bible tells you so?
Because most humans say it is immoral?
Because you personally find it revolting?
Because all strong feelings about a moral issue necessarily come from God?
Some combination of the above?
Some other reason or reasons?
I cannot fulfill my burden to provide direct evidence of atheism by hiding behind continual attacks on the morality of the bible-god, and YOU cannot fulfill your burden to provide direct evidence that baby torture is objectively immoral, by constantly hiding behind complaints that the moral relativist position is fallacious.
Let everything be done decently and in order.
I look forward to further dialogue with you,
Barry
Barry, you seem to have missed the key point of my last post. Which is your suggestion I am under some kind of burden to prove this is simply false.
To demonstrate why I think its objectively wrong to torture babies for fun let me ask you some questions. These are to elucidate some premises which hopefully you and many of my readers will agree upon
1. If someone tortured a baby for fun, they grabbed a two year old and beat it repeatedly with a belt in front of you so it was bleeding and screaming in agony, and laughed as they did it repeatedly saying “I am doing this purely for fun, I have no other reason” would you d you honestly say that a person who did this did no wrong?
2. If as I suspect the answer to the above question is no, suppose the person who was whipping the flesh of the child in front of you told you he thought his action was perfectly ok, and there was nothing wrong with it, and that he was part of a community whose mores endorsed this sort of behaviour, would you change your opinion and claim that what he did wasn’t wrong, but was morally perfectly acceptable?
Now I suspect, unless you’re a total Psychopath, that your answer to both these questions is “No”. If it is however then, you have claimed both that (a) the action is wrong and (b) individuals and communities who judge it isn’t wrong are mistaken. If (a) and (b) are correct then morality is objective.
Of course you could respond by biting the bullet and saying that in your opinon a person who beats a child in that way for fun does nothing wrong at all. But I would take that as a reduction ad absurdium of your position. I suspect that many of my readers who you are so concerned about would have a similar response. If you have to say that there is nothing wrong with actions I spelt out in 1 and 2 to justify the kind of religious scepticism you want to justify then your position is implausible and to put it mildly close to sociopathic.
Perhaps you think I am under some kind of burden to prove 1 and 2. You think that when we see a child beating flayed with such intensity that its skin is bleeding and its screaming in agony we can’t claim that’s wrong until we have provided some kind of scientific empirical justification, cooly examining all the data, solving the is ought problem, and so forth. And that until someone does this the rational stance is to say that the person does nothing wrong at all.
You might think this, but I would just dispute that it seems pretty evident to me that’s simply an absurd and ridiculous stance to take. I have already explained why I contend that your suggestion that anyone who asserts something carries some kind of burden of proof in my first post. So until you actually respond to these criticisms you cant just assert that the burden of proof is on the person who opposes child flaying and the sadist’s position is the default one seems to me to be mistaken, its similar to the position of a person who says they won’t believe the world isn’t a figment of there imagination until someone proves it actually exists. Or the solipsist who refuses to believe other people actually exist until someone proves it. Or the person who demands you prove the proposition “nothing is red all over and blue all over at the same time”.
Dr. Flannagan,
I provide a point by point response to you at my blog, but for now, it’s probably better to limit my posting here to resolving one of our important disagreements necessarily involved in the objective morality debate.
You have stated repeatedly in prior posts that when the moral relativist characterizes somebody else’s moral viewpoint as “wrong”, the relativist is necessarily implying an objective standard of moral right and wrong.
For example, you said that objectivity is presupposed when somebody admits any certain moral view was “mistaken”. From http://www.mandm.org.nz/2017/10/richard-carrier-on-the-moral-scepticism-objection-to-divine-command-theory.html:
“Stephen Evan’s similarly stresses that we assume or presuppose that moral judgments are the “kind of thing we can be mistaken about” and we criticise societies and other people for making mistaken moral judgments, all of which presupposes objectivity.”
“…or the fact we think some cultural mores or moral systems are worse than others and so on, all of which presuppose objectivity. Or the fact we engage in debate with other people over what is the right thing to do.”
Your most direct statement on the subject was:
“…I put forward a hypothetical situation where a community endorsed the torture of children and asked whether you think a society which judged it was ok to do this was mistaken in doing so, or whether you thought there judgment it was permissible to torture children was correct. In fact, I put the challenge to you in the post? Most people judge that such a society does make a mistake, which shows that they presuppose that moral judgements are objective.”
I believe you were wrong to assume an objective standard of moral right and wrong is being presupposed when the moral relativist declares that somebody else’s viewpoint is “wrong”.
That is because there are numerous examples from real life in which we find it totally legitimate and justified to declare a person “wrong” on the basis of an admittedly non-objective, subjective or entirely relative standard.
Suppose I impose a 9 p.m. bedtime on my 7-year old daughter on a school night. When she says “I don’t have to do what you say”, I reply “you are wrong”. Is my assessment legitimate? After all, there is nothing in nature, any religious text, our deepest moral intuitions, or any viewpoint that most human beings agree on, which specifies what precise bedtime a child must obey on a school night, or specifies that a child must obey just anything the parent says at any time.
That situation is 100% subjective, yet it is legitimate for the dad to characterize his daughter’s rebellious attitude in that context as “wrong”.
Can you agree with me that “you are wrong” can be a legitimate moral criticism even in the absence of any objective moral standard?
I honestly cannot imagine how you could possibly infuse my chosen bedtime of 9 p.m. in this context with any objectivity, given that bedtime for kids is something parents wildly disagree about, precisely because there is no objective standard to apply in the first place.
Barry, I haven’t just stated, that objectivity is presupposed in the idea of moral mistakes I offered an “argument” for that conclusion.
The argument is this: For a person or a society of person’s to make a mistaken judgement, it must be possible for the judgement they make on a topic to differ from a correct judgement on that topic. If my judgement is always in accord with a correct judgement, I am by definition infallible. In order for my judgement to be incorrect, there has to be a correct standard which differs from what I think.
I don’t think your examples address this argument, in fact, they tend to support it.
First, note that the example you give does refute some forms of relativism such as subjectivism. Subjectivism is the view that that actions are right and wrong relative to individual opinions. An action is wrong for a person because he or she thinks it is wrong. In the example, you give the daughter judges that she doesn’t have to go to bed at 9 pm on a school night, and as you say she is wrong. So what”s right and wrong isn’t determined by her opinions on the matter. It is rather determined by a standard independent of her own judgement. Her fathers. So this case illustrates my point a person or groups judgements can be mistaken only because there is a standard independent of those judgements, which it fails to conform to.
Second, your example is based on the idea that bedtime laid down by the father is entirely subjective or relative . This however I think is false. It seems to me there are objective facts which determine whether a given bedtime is correct or incorrect. To see this, imagine the parent demanded that the 7-year-old was not to go to bed till 5 am on a school night and get up for school at 7am. This would obviously not be a correct judgement about when the child should go to bed. This is because such a bedtime would harm the child and parents have a duty to not harm the child. These facts obtain independently of whether or not the father judges that a 5am-7am bedtime is a good idea. No matter how strongly he believes the child ought to only have 2 hours sleep a night, he will be mistaken and in fact, his practices will be negligent and abusive. So, in fact, your example underscores the point that judgements even about bedtimes aren’t relative, they can be correct or incorrect depending on whether they conform with standards which are applicable independently of the parent’s judgement.
If you want to argue that your example involves an entirely “relative” or subjective judgement. You’d have to argue that the correct bedtime is whatever bedtime a parent decides and that if a parent decides to cause his child serious harm by choosing a ridiculous time like 5-7am then he is correct that that is when the child should go to bed. I doubt anyone thinks this, I doubt very much you do as well.
Matt,
You said:
“It seems to me there are objective facts which determine whether a given bedtime is correct or incorrect. To see this, imagine the parent demanded that the 7-year-old was not to go to bed till 5 am on a school night and get up for school at 7am. This would obviously not be a correct judgement about when the child should go to bed. This is because such a bedtime would harm the child and parents have a duty to not harm the child.”
What moral standard are you appealing to, to justify saying parents have a duty not to harm their child?
Barry, so to be clear, are you contesting the claim that parents have a duty to not inflict the kind of neurological and psychological harms that come about from children having a only a couple of hours sleep every night? If that’s what you have to deny to defend your skepiticism then it seems to me that really shows how implausible it is.
Also, I am willing to bet that if a religious community told parents it was ok to cause serious physical or mental harm to their children, you and other sceptics would be all over it and condemning this. Which shows that these sceptics do think its wrong to harm children and its wrong even if your community teaches otherwise. Can you clarify here if you would claim that a religious community that taught this was a duty were incorrect?
Dr. Flannagan,
Since you said via private email that you *didn’t* cause me to be banned from this website, I was wondering whether you have done, or intend to do, anything to fix the problem so I can resume replying to you here? If not, simply say so and I will cease trying to contact you, and carry on my rebuttals to your morality-arguments over at my own blog.
Ok, my post went through, so I assume the ban thing was resolved.
First, let’s assume for the sake of argument that yes, I believe parents have no moral duty to avoid harming their kids. You said that would show how “implausible” my position is. How does it show implausibility?
Correct me if I’m wrong but because I haven’t seen where you previously identified what moral yardstick you are using to draw such a negative conclusion, it seems as if all you are basing the “implausibility” judgment on is nothing more than human consensus. That is, the fact that most human beings think parents have a duty to avoid harming their kids, is the reason to classify that belief as “objective”. If you aren’t invoking human consensus, then please identify the moral yardstick you are using to judge my contrary position to be “implausible”.
Again, you say I’d likely condemn any religious organization that promoted child abuse. Suppose for the sake of argument that I was apathetic toward this, saying that parents have no duty to avoid harming their kids.
Yes, the vast majority of humanity would disagree with me, but if you refuse to rely on human consensus here, then why DO you think parents have a duty to avoid harming their kids?
Could I be reasonable to interpret Proverbs 23:13 to be an exception to your alleged moral absolute, on the grounds that the author likely didn’t mean “tap”, when he said to “strike” the child with the rod (thus leaving bruises, thus recommending that parents “harm” their kids, thus a biblical exception to your view that parents should never harm their kids)?
At that point, the tables are turned, and the same crowd that would boo me for hypothetically saying parents have no duty to avoid harming their kids, would turn around and boo YOU for saying leaving bruises on a child’s body doesn’t qualify as “harming” the child (of they would boo you for pretending that “strike” meant “tap”). I can be reasonable to interpret the Proverbs this way, just like a Christian can be reasonable to interpret the bible to promote post-millennialism, despite the fact that rebuttal arguments to such doctrine also exist.
Reasonableness on my part doesn’t require that I knock all possible contrary evidence all the way all the way out of the ball park. If you can be rational to “accept Jesus” without having all the answers to every Jesus-related problem in modern bible scholarship, then an atheist can be reasonable to say Proverbs is promoting child abuse even if the atheist doesn’t have all the answers to every counter-argument on Proverbs that Christian scholars could give.
But yes, if you want to go head-to-head with me about whether Proverbs is promoting child-abuse, I’m ready.
Once again: what moral yardstick or moral authority are you using, to argue that parents have a duty to avoid harming their children?
Human consensus?
The bible tells you so?
God gave you an infallible vision?
What exactly?
Because it sounds to me like you are saying parents have an objective moral duty to avoid obeying Proverbs 23:13.
If you don’t think you need to answer such question directly, please say why, because it sure does seem to be highly relevant.
I sent you a private email that had attached the web page telling me I was blocked for spamming. I’ve demonstrated my sincerity in interacting with you, I answered your last post at my own blog because of the block, and I have nothing to gain whatsoever from falsely fabricating a false charge that your website mis-identified me as posting spam.
But your comment, supra, implies that I was never blocked and thus further implies you think my accusation thereto completely false. Please plainly state what you believe instead of leaving it cryptic. You don’t want anybody to get the wrong impression, do you?
I await the day you identify the moral yardstick or authority upon which you rely for saying some human actions are objectively immoral.
Once again, what source of moral authority tells you parents have a duty to avoid harming their kids?
The bible tells you so?
God gave you a vision?
Whatever the human consensus was, is surely god’s law in our hearts?
Strong feelings about moral issues only come from the Holy Spirit?
What exactly?
If it’s “obvious”, you should have no more trouble pointing it out, than you have trouble in pointing to parked cars.